l, and pull you through somehow."

But the girl only lamented herself the more piteously.

"Oh no, Shotover, you must not be so kind to me! You couldn't if you
knew how wicked I have been."

"Couldn't I?" Lord Shotover remarked, not without a touch of humorous
pathos. "Poor little Con!"

"Only, only please do not tell Louisa. It would be too dreadful if she
knew--she, and Alicia, and the others. Don't tell her, and I will be
good. I will be quite good, indeed I will."

"Bless me, my dear child, I won't tell anybody anything. To begin with
I don't know anything to tell."

The girl's voice had sunk away into a sob. She shuddered, letting her
pretty, brown head fall back against Honoria St. Quentin's bare
shoulder,--while the moonlight glinted on her jewels and the night wind
swayed the hanging clusters of the pink geraniums. Along with the
warmth and scent of flowers, streaming outward through the open
windows, came a confused sound of many voices, of discreet laughter,
mingled with the wailing sweetness of violins. Then the pleading,
broken, childish voice took up its tale again:--

"I will be good. I know I have promised, and I have let him give me a
number of beautiful things. He has been very kind to me, because he is
clever, and of course I am stupid. But he has never been impatient with
me. And I am not ungrateful, indeed, Shotover, I am not. It was only
for a minute I was wicked enough to think of doing it. But Mr. Decies
told me he--asked me--and--and we were so happy at Whitney in the
winter. And it seemed too hard to give it all up, as he said it was
true. But I will be good, indeed I will. Really it was only for a
minute I thought of it. I know I have promised. Indeed, I will make no
fuss. I will be good. I will marry Richard Calmady."

"But this is simply intolerable!" Honoria said in a low voice.

She held herself tall and straight, looking gallant yet pure, austere
even, as some pictured Jeanne d'Arc, a great singleness of purpose, a
high courage of protest, an effect at once of fearless challenge and of
command in her bearing.--"Is it not a scandal," she went on, "that in a
civilised country, at this time of day, woman should be allowed,
actually forced, to suffer so much? You must not permit this martyrdom
to be completed--you can't!"

As she spoke Decies watched her keenly. Who this stately, young
lady--so remarkably unlike the majority of Lord Shotover's intimate,
feminine acquaintance--might